Steve James: never mind the Ashes, Wales v England in the Six Nations is bigger - just don't ask me to pick a side

Difficult week this. Wales play England at rugby on Friday night. I live in
Wales, my wife is Welsh, both my children are Welsh, and, because I played
cricket for Glamorgan for about 20 years and my surname hardly suggests
otherwise, everyone assumes I’m Welsh too.

Best of enemies: Phil Vickery on the charge against Wales in the Six Nations last yearPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

But I’m not. I was born and brought up in Lydney, a small town nestled on the outer fringes of the Forest of Dean and alongside the River Severn. It is very close to the Welsh border, but not close enough. It is in England.

It is also deep in rugby country. Its rugby-playing inhabitants support England with ferocious enthusiasm. When my father and his mates went to watch a home Five Nations match, they would drive west to Chepstow, into Wales indeed, but then take a left turn over the Severn Bridge and the long trip along the M4 to London, rather than the right towards Cardiff and a far shorter journey.

I went with them in 1980, squashed into the boot of the family estate car. Wales’s Paul Ringer was sent off and we (England) smashed them (Wales) 9-8. It was the most joyous occasion of my young life.

It has always been unfathomable to me how such a strong national allegiance can be altered. And, goodness, I’ve given it some thought. I once very nearly threw my hat into Zimbabwe’s ring when Test cricket there seemed an easy option. There have been times when it has just seemed easier to admit being Welsh.

My maternal grandmother was from Kenfig Hill, near Bridgend. There is so much about Wales and its people I adore. But when Simon Hughes interviewed me upon the morning of my Test debut and asked how nice it was for two Welshmen to be playing (Robert Croft was also appearing against South Africa), I could not lie: “I am not Welsh,” I stammered. I had better not repeat the contents of one letter I received from a Glamorgan member in the days that followed.

And when I was asked to captain Wales against England in a warm-up match in 2002, I initially expressed reservation. When it was pointed out that the South African Jacques Kallis was appearing as a guest, and he hardly passed the residency qualifications, I felt more comfortable. And we (Wales) did hammer them (England) that day, by eight wickets.

But this is not a simple business. For while sport might be a major carrier of national identity, it is also a carrier of opportunism and, at times, downright mercenariness.

Increased globalisation and intercontinental travel mean qualification rules are now used as lubricant for shrewd career moves that oil bucketloads of lucre.

England’s cricket team are the most obvious example. There are a few South Africans in it. England’s rugby team on Friday will be little different.

There will probably be a couple of New Zealanders in Shontayne Hape and Dylan Hartley, possibly a South African in Hendrie Fourie. Also in their squad they have the young Wasps scrum-half, Joe Simpson, who was still supporting the country of his birth, Australia, in the 2003 World Cup final.

It will be to Wales’s credit that they will be homegrown. Yes, their coaching staff won’t be (Kiwi Warren Gatland and Englishman Shaun Edwards), but that is different. Thankfully these days the team can sing Land of my Fathers with a clear conscience. Land of my Grandfathers, Maybe always sounded a little weird, in the days of Shane Howarth and Brett Sinkinson.

Not, of course, that confused loyalties are a new thing. Fourteen cricketers have appeared in a Test for more than one national team, and only one of them, Kepler Wessels (who played for Australia during apartheid and then South Africa upon readmission), can really claim politics demanded so.

One of them was the only other cricketer born in my neck of the woods who also represented England; a chap called Billy Midwinter, born in the village of St Briavels.

But, having moved to Australia aged nine, Midwinter represented his adopted country first in 1877 before switching sides four years later, and then back again in 1883. He was also kidnapped by W G Grace to play a game for Gloucestershire, but that’s another story.

For now there is only one story. Wales versus England. Not even a ridiculous train strike planned for Friday can change that. In cricket the Ashes this winter was, and always is, enthralling, but the truth is that local derbies provoke the strongest emotions.